Astana. March 20.KAZINFORM./Balym Issenova/ At the invitation of President H.H. Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Saturday last week, President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev went with a two-day official visit to the United Arab Emirates. As is known Kazakhstan attaches great importance to cooperation with the Gulf States including the UAE. The United Arab Emirates is one of Kazakhstan’s closest partners in the Middle East. According to the experts, the two countries’ relationships develop in spirit of friendship and mutual respect. The Kazakhstan-UAE partnership is based on trade-economic and investment cooperation. Our country attracts Arab investments for projects implementation in energy and agriculture, water supply and construction of infrastructure facilities. It should be noted that today the UAE investors are primarily interested in industrial sphere while earlier they preferred to invest in real estate. The Emirates’ economy is based on production and processing of oil and gas, construction, development of communications, information technologies and banking sector, education and healthcare, harbor and airport services. In political sphere Kazakhstan cooperates with the UAE within the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia and the Dialogue of Cooperation in Asia. The UAE supports Kazakhstan’s initiatives on convocation of the Congress of the Leaders of the World and Traditional Religions and positively estimates our country’s activity within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. According to Kazakh Ambassador to UAE Askar Mussinov, Kazakhstan will draw lessons from the UAE experience in addressing and handling the international financial crisis. 'Kazakhstan will take guide of the UAE approach of prompt handling the impact of the world financial and economic crunch’, Mussinov said. in an interview with UAE state news agency WAM. He praised the UAE President's support for development, mainly educational and humanitarian projects in our country, noting that a modern maternity hospital would be inaugurated next October. ''A school, funded by Sheikh Khalifa, will be built in Astana. Sheikh Khalifa also offered US$ 10 million for building a mosque in south Kazakhstan,'' he informed.He expressed hopedthat Etihad flights from Abu Dhabi to Astana would be increased from four to seven weekly to meet the growing air traffic between the two countries. As earlier reported, three memorandums of mutual understanding on development of partnership in energy, petro chemistry, processing industry and aluminum production were signed during Prime Minister Karim Massimov’s visit to the UAE. The documents were signed within implementation of the agreements reached by both countries’ presidents. In particular, these are the memo of mutual understanding between Kazakhstan’s KazMunaiGaz and IPIC International Oil Company on construction of a petrochemical venture in Atyrau, the memo of mutual understanding between the Mubadala Company and Tobol Social-Entrepreneurial Corporation on development of bauxite deposits and construction of an aluminum plant in Kostanay oblast and the memo of mutual understanding between the RK Ministry of Industry and Trade and IPIC Company on establishment and development of a chemical and mineral fertilizers plant. During the current visit of the Head of State Nursultan Nazarbayev to the United Arab Emirates a number of documents were also signed. These include the Agreement between Kazakhstan and the United Arab Emirates on mutual legal assistance and legal relations in civil and commercial matters, the Agreement on extradition of the perpetrators and the Agreement on legal assistance in criminal matters. The parties also entered into a Memorandum of understanding on political consultations between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the UAE. During his visit to the UAE, President N. Nazarbayev participated in the first session of the Business Council in Abu-Dhabi, where he outlined several priority directions for cooperation and welcomed Emirati businessmen to invest into Kazakhstan's economy. First of all, it is development of the industries with high added value. “These should be the businesses which will perform deep processing of Kazakhstan's natural resources – chemistry, petro chemistry, oil products, metallurgy, mechanical engineering, equipment for transport, oil-and-gas and agricultural industries”, he said. According to N. Nazarbayev, development of agrobusiness industry and particularly manufacture of agricultural products with further export and development of infrastructure is also among investment-attractive sectors. President of the UAE Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan awarded the President of Kazakhstan with the Zayed Order for the contribution to the development of bilateral relations. The Days of Kazakhstan’s culture, photo exhibition about modern Kazakhstan, exhibition of arts and crafts and jewelry were held within the Kazakh President’s visit to the UAE. Government session was held Tuesday this week. Vice Prime Minister Y. Orynbayev informed there that additional KZT 5.5 billion will be budgeted in creation of more than 61 thousand jobs. According to Vice Premier, KZT 3.1 billion will also be invested in creation of 34.5 thousand jobs for youth employment. The funds for these two directions of the “road map” will be allocated by the republican budget. As reported earlier, the “road map” is aimed at implementing the strategy of employment and staff training, development of agro-industrial and infrastructural projects. It was adopted to exercise the Kazakh President’s commissions outlined in his annual address to the nation “Through Crisis to Renovation and Prosperity”. Orynbayev also informed that the Kazakh Ministry of Economy and Budget Planning together with the local executive bodies worked out the criteria of local budgets optimization in two dimensions According to the Vice Premier, the first direction is a 50% decrease of the budget development including financing of construction of new facilities, construction of non-priority areas, development of design estimates, creation of information systems and etc. The second is a 50% decrease of expenses on business trips, advanced training, capital repair of public offices and premises. With account of these criteria the amount of co-financing of the local executive bodies made KZT 53 billion. The total budget of the strategy of regional employment and staff retraining will amount to KZT 193 billion. The Antirecessionary Council under Kazakhstan Government held a regular session Tuesday chaired by PM K. Massimov. A range of issues related to the measures of economic stabilization and upgrade of the public control system were discussed during the session. The members of the Council also discussed the problems of regulating the terms and conditions of payment to business entities for the goods and services purchased by national companies and public agencies. They also approved the structure and the procedures and regulations of the Council. Among this week important Government developments is the meeting of President’s Aide – Secretary of the Security Council K. Suleimenov with Special Envoy of the NATO Secretary General for the Caucasus and Central Asia R. Simmons. The parties noted the importance of implementation of cooperation programs including the Kazakhstan-NATO Individual Partnership Action Plan. K. Suleimenov and R. Simmons confirmed their intention to support an active dialogue and highlighted the necessity of enhancing bilateral interaction in ensuring regional security including the situation in Afghanistan. Issues of preparation for the Security Forum of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council scheduled for June in Astana were discussed as well. “Kazakhstan and NATO are entering a new stage of cooperation”, R. Simmons said at the meeting with Chairman of the Majilis Committee for Foreign Affairs, Defense and Security N. Rustemov. The sides discussed the beginning of the second stage of cooperation in accordance with the Partnership Plan. Regarding the issues of Kazakhstan's airspace R. Simmons underlined the importance to enter into land transit agreement. Robert Simmons also met with the group of the Senate deputies. The sides exchanged opinions on the further development of relations between Kazakhstan and the NATO. “Kazakhstan keeps to the consistent constructive interaction with the NATO” Senator K. Sultanov said and highlighted the role of the parliament in the promotion of partnership relations with the Alliance. According to the Senator, the forthcoming NATO Parliamentary Assembly Rose-Roth seminar and Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council Security Forum in Astana will be an opportunity to discuss the issues of cooperation between the NATO partner countries. There is one more important event in our country’s life this week. On Wednesday Toyota Motor Europe opened its office in Kazakhstan. “We are going to stay in Kazakhstan for long. We believe that after the crisis this country will become one of the most powerful economies in the region”, Tadashi Arashima, President and Chief Executive Officer of “Toyota Motor Europe” said at the opening ceremony of “Toyota Motor Kazakhstan” LLC in Almaty “Toyota always keeps a long-term business approach. Opening of the associate company in Kazakhstan in this hard time shows it. We, Toyota Motor Europe and Toyota Motor Kazakhstan, will render all-round support to Kazakhstan. We hope for your support as well”, T. Arashima said. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan Shigeo Natsui confirms Japan’s intention to cooperate with Kazakhstan. “Japan highly values relationship with Kazakhstan. Our country takes a positive view of Kazakhstan’s integration initiatives and its membership in international and regional organizations. We support Kazakhstan’s steps aimed at mutual understanding and peace, for example the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA)”, the Japanese diplomat emphasized.